Ghoul­ish go­ings on could be added to Ar­broath’s story

The one-off Hal­loween Fish Witch Walk could fea­ture a cast in­clud­ing an evil butcher, a fish­wife, a light­house keeper and a smug­gler.

Jean Ste­wart from Ar­broath is ap­ply­ing for fund­ing for the fam­i­lyfriendly walk.

She said she was re­spond­ing to con­cerns that the town didn’t of­fer the kind of guided tours that have be­come pop­u­lar in Dundee.

“We have got such a lot to show off that it should be a given that we do en­ter­tain vis­i­tors and lo­cals alike,” she added.

“A few of us had a meet­ing and I have ap­plied for fund­ing as the Fish Witch Walk would re­quire an en­ter­tain­ment li­cence.

“If it does hap­pen then per­haps it shows that next year a group could be set up to at least make it a reg­u­lar sum­mer event, tak­ing in the har­bour to the Abbey where the real his­tory is.”

She said there hadn’t been enough time to or­gan­ise a de­tailed his­tor­i­cal walk so the Hal­loween event would be more of a fam­i­lyfriendly “ghostly trip” along the streets with spooks ap­pear­ing here and there.

Mrs Ste­wart is try­ing to get lo­cals on board to give ideas or pro­vide help, and mo­men­tum is gather­ing.

Ar­broath has a his­tory of ghostly leg­ends, in­clud­ing renowned myths re­lat­ing to its world-fa­mous abbey and St Vigeans Church.

The sound of re­li­gious chant­ing is said to have been heard em­a­nat­ing from within the grounds of the abbey and ghostly ap­pari­tions have been re­ported.

In the 18th Cen­tury, res­i­dents of St Vigeans be­lieved there was a loch un­der the 40ft mound on which the church stands and that a kelpie lived there.

It was ru­moured the man who built the church cap­tured the horse and put it to work drag­ging large stones up the hill but on be­ing res­cued from its labours, the beast har­boured a re­sent­ment against its cap­tor and set a curse upon the church.